Minimally invasive procedures have been implemented in a variety of medical settings, e.g., for vascular interventions, such as angioplasty, stenting, embolic protection, electrical heart stimulation, heart mapping and visualization, and the like. These procedures generally rely on accurately navigating and placing instruments within a patient's vasculature. During such procedures, guide wires are used to advance catheters, sheaths or similar medical devices into a patient's body vessel.
Document U.S. Pat. No. 7,570,981 B2 discloses a complex guiding catheter system for accessing a patient's heart.
In order to stimulate the right atrium and the left ventricle of the human heart the Atrioventricular Septum (AV septum) of the heart can be used. Such a dual chamber stimulation is nowadays very common and corresponds to a greater extend to the physiological behaviour of the human heart than other stimulation methods. For such a stimulation usually an electrode is used which comprises an elongated helix construction at its distal end which needs to be exactly positioned at the AV septum.
It is possible to observe the movement of the electrode during implantation and to place the electrode exactly at the AV septum using an ultrasonic system for localization of the electrode tip. However, such an ultrasonic monitoring needs (beside the implantation of the electrode) another intervention which is usually started at the groin. However, this second intervention causes extra stress for the patient and requires another physician during the surgery. This is therefore an expensive, complicated method which does not conform to standard methods in this medical area.
The present invention is directed toward overcoming one or more of the above-mentioned problems.